Angry White Man Rightly Arrested After Shooting Down Camera Drone
A man in Kentucky was arrested this past Sunday after he used a shotgun to shoot down a camera drone flying over his property. He’s being charged with criminal mischief and wanton endangerment, both of which are felonies.
47-year-old William H. Merideth of Hillview, Kentucky, told police that his daughters called him out of the house, saying that there was a camera drone “flying over everybody’s yard.”
A neighbor nearby also reported seeing the drone, telling local news station WDRB that seeing a camera flying over where her 16-year-old daughter sunbathes was “creepy and weird.” “I just think you should have privacy in your own backyard,” she says.
More: Kentucky Man Arrested After Shooting Down Camera Drone With Shotgun
No, we don’t get to use violence at all let alone a shotgun to protect our privacy, the nations airspace over the home (it is not your airspace, you have no right to protect it at all). Just because a cop says he agrees with you (and assuming that was not a cop lie to elicit a confession) does not make you right. Demanding or starting legal action may hold sway in civil court but can not force new laws to be promulgated. If this guy wants his privacy assured he can build a roof. Better yet just crawl back under his rock. Pay the victims for the drone, and emotional stress via being threatened with being shot. Frankly I hope the FAA files charges for shooting down an aircraft. That’s the law.
Armed, angry and ignorant is no way to protect anything except a reputation as an asshole.
So what should he do? Just like the rest of us that want legislative relief, he can call his congressman or city council. He can get anger management. he can learn that we all live under the FAA’s airspace and that our privacy is a distant memory since helicopters and the internet.
Once my wife was laying by the pool in her bikini. Across the street a building was under construction and the men on the roof started talking trash about her in spanish and catcalling her. I called LAPD and found that no action would be taken.
What to do? Nothing. Sometimes life brings a bad moment. Cope with it. Judging by the guys statements he was looking to shoot the operator the instant he could possibly justify it. Terrorist threats is what we call that with a gun in hand or on the person.